All electronic devices require some apparatus for providing the electrical power necessary to operate the devices. One approach to providing such power is to incorporate a battery power system into the device. Such a battery power system would be desirable in systems where use of an AC power system is impractical, or as a backup to an AC power system to maintain power in case of an AC power failure.
The battery power system may be required to supply significant power to the load device. One method of increasing power to the load device is to utilize several separate batteries in parallel. The addition of multiple batteries into the system complicates the design of the system, as each battery would likely have different charging, lifetime and other performance characteristics. These variations between different batteries and their associated electronics complicate correctly matching the performance characteristics of all of the batteries in the system to the system's need, and make it difficult to accurately predict their future behavior. The system designer or the end user would be required to consider these characteristics on a battery-by-battery basis.
Also, loads often have different power needs under different conditions or at different times. It would therefore be desirable to be able to customize the battery power characteristics to the power needs of the system. For example, it might be desirable to have low power but fast recharging batteries compensate for minor changes in power to the load during unusually heavy activity while leaving higher power, slower recharging batteries available for primary power use. Prior art battery power supplies can modify their power outputs in response to changes in the power drawn by the load, but cannot selectively activate specific batteries to respond to specific changes in load power needs.
It would therefore be desirable to develop a battery power system wherein the battery management electronics is modular in nature. Such a battery power system would include a plurality of battery modules wherein each module would be independently able to monitor and control its own functioning so that the user need not consider the condition or characteristics of each individual battery module when incorporating them into the system.
In addition, each battery module should function to alert the user to any malfunctions. Ideally, the battery power system would record the status of the individual battery modules to assist in diagnosis of problems with the battery modules. It would also be desirable for the individual battery modules to automatically recharge themselves as needed.
The individual battery modules should further be capable of monitoring the power needs of the load to determine whether they should be operative to supply power to the load. In addition, an optional central controller could be provided to communicate with the individual battery modules to provide commands to update the individual modules' programming. The individual battery modules would preferably also be able to communicate with the central controller to provide, for example, data regarding the battery charge status, temperature, output current demand, and other relevant performance characteristics. An ideal modular battery power system would then be capable of directing distinct battery modules to function differently under specified circumstances to best match the power needs of the load.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved multicell battery power supply.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a multicell battery power supply which is modular and contains separate battery modules each containing essential control and monitoring circuitry to control its own functioning based upon internal conditions to the battery module as well as the conditions of the overall power supply.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a multicell battery power supply which can regulate power output in response to the power needs of the load.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a multicell battery power supply which automatically recharges individual batteries based upon predetermined time or battery power level conditions.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a multicell battery power supply which alerts the user to malfunctions in individual battery modules.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a multicell battery power supply which records status information related to the functionality of the battery modules or of the condition of the overall system power output.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a modular multicell battery power supply wherein a central controller communicates directly with individual battery modules.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description and accompanying claims and drawings.